Where Westworld was a true masterpiece in season 1, it seems to slowly unravel in season 2. As feared. There seems to no longer be a pulsating plot that moves us forward. The matters at hand used to seem actually meaningful and tantalizing: who is the Man in Black? What is the maze? What did Ford plan all along? Every episode was like a fine Swiss clockwork, gripping into each other and moving us forward with great story telling and psychological depth.
Now in this second season, and with episode 5 being the worst episode I have yet seen of Westworld, the characters have turned into semi Terminators, losing all 3 dimensionality. Maeves 'quest' to find her daughter seems artificial and just another writers ploy to keep her marching on through Westworld. It is a flat quest with little emotional investment of the viewer; all we've ever seen of the scripted daughter story line is flashes of an angelic girls face, violence and separation. I frankly do not care and don't quite get why Maeve, 'knowing' all she does, is still so invested. It seems a very meager story plot after all the awesomeness from season 1. It almost feels as if the series should have ended there, and as if the main story has already been told, and the writers are now plotting and plodding along to deliver another ordered series by HBO. I'm completely bored with the 2 dimensionality of the characters by now and the slow and frankly pointless story lines that are left.